STAFF and patients at a private hospital are celebrating its first anniversary.

Woodlands Hospital, at Morton Park, Darlington, has treated more than 5,000 patients since it opened.

The hospital has 22 en-suite bedrooms, two operating theatres, a high dependency unit and an outpatients department.

During the past year the hospital has been at the centre of countrywide controversy, especially when the region's only clinics for single mumps, measles and rubella jabs was held there.

Thousands of parents, concerned about the effects of the combined MMR jab, visited the clinic run by national company Direct Health 2000.

To celebrate the hospital's milestone a big cake was presented to staff and patients to enjoy